DeLay’s Own Tragic Crossroads

The family [of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)] then turned to lawyers.

In 1990, the DeLays filed suit against Midcap Bearing Corp. of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the distributor and maker of a coupling that the family said had failed and caused the tram to hurtle out of control.

The family’s wrongful death lawsuit accused the companies of negligence and sought actual and punitive damages. Lawyers for the companies denied the allegations and countersued the surviving designer of the tram system, Jerry DeLay.

The case thrust Rep. DeLay into unfamiliar territory — the front page of a civil complaint as a plaintiff. He is an outspoken defender of business against what he calls the crippling effects of “predatory, self-serving litigation.”

The DeLay family litigation sought unspecified compensation for, among other things, the dead father’s “physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and trauma,” and the mother’s grief, sorrow and loss of companionship.

Their lawsuit also alleged violations of the Texas product liability law.

The DeLay case moved slowly through the Texas judicial system, accumulating more than 500 pages of motions, affidavits and disclosures over nearly three years. Among the affidavits was one filed by the congressman, but family members said he had little direct involvement in the lawsuit, leaving that to his brother Randall, an attorney.

Rep. DeLay, who since has taken a leading role promoting tort reform, wants to rein in trial lawyers to protect American businesses from what he calls “frivolous, parasitic lawsuits” that raise insurance premiums and “kill jobs.”

Last September, he expressed less than warm sentiment for attorneys when he took the floor of the House to condemn trial lawyers who, he said, “get fat off the pain” of plaintiffs and off “the hard work” of defendants.

Aides for DeLay defended his role as a plaintiff in the family lawsuit, saying he did not follow the legal case and was not aware of its final outcome.

The case was resolved in 1993 with payment of an undisclosed sum, said to be about $250,000, according to sources familiar with the out-of-court settlement. DeLay signed over his share of any proceeds to his mother, said his aides.

Three years later, DeLay cosponsored a bill specifically designed to override state laws on product liability such as the one cited in his family’s lawsuit. The legislation provided sweeping exemptions for product sellers.

The 1996 bill was vetoed by President Clinton, who said he objected to the DeLay-backed measure because it “tilts against American families and would deprive them of the ability to recover fully when they are injured by a defective product.”

[thanks, Lisa!]

News Hounds: We watch FOX so you don’t have to.

While FOX News Waves The Flag Of Patriotism, Rupert Murdoch Dodges US Taxes

An article in yesterday’s Observer begins:

Rupert Murdoch last week floated his family’s 3.8 billion-pound personal investment company in Bermuda – saving himself 522 million pounds in taxes.

Bermuda was chosen because the media tycoon, who chairs News Corporation, wanted to avoid the taxman after his firm changed domicile from Australia to the United States recently. Just prior to the Bermuda float, Murdoch bought a 20-room, three-floor residence opposite Central Park in Manhattan for 22 million pounds. Days later he bought a house in Beijing.

Comment: As of March 24, the conversion rate was 1 pound to 1.87 US dollars. That means Murdoch avoided more than $976 million in taxes. I wonder how many armored humvees that would have paid for?

News Hounds: Fox viewer thinks Hannity too moderate

you want to know Gods will? Well it comes through me not your
namby pamby ignorant filled messages. How can you call yourself a real
republican? I am offended that you think your right wing. God is finally
getting this country back on track with Brother Bush leading the way, while
you act as if you support him I sense underneath you think you could do
better. I am here to tell you that George W. Bush is anointed and appointed
By God himself, he will lead us to Victory over the ignorant Muslims and
anti-Christ like Insurgents. We asked our followers to Vote republican and
they did, GOD HAS Spoken on the issue through me… In Christian Love,
Reverend Barney W**** Americas TRUE Republican Prophet Author & Faith Healer

Washington > Conservatives: G.O.P. Right Is Splintered on Schiavo Intervention” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23repubs.html?ei=5090&en=b374f7629523357d&ex=1269234000&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position=”>The New York Times > Washington > Conservatives: G.O.P. Right Is Splintered on Schiavo Intervention

“This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative,” said David Davenport of the Hoover Institute, a conservative research organization. “When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it’s been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked – even if it hasn’t given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism.” …

Representative Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who is the House majority leader, bristled on Sunday when he was asked about how to square the bill with federalist precepts.

“I really think it is interesting that the media is defining what conservatism is,” Mr. DeLay said. “The conservative doctrine here is the Constitution of the United States.”

The Republican Party has long associated itself with limiting the power of the federal government over the states, though this is not the only time that party leaders have veered from that position. Most famously, in 2000, it persuaded the Supreme Court to overturn a Florida court ruling ordering a recount of the vote in the presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush.

But now the Schiavo case is illustrating splinters in the conservative movement that Mr. Bush managed to bridge in his last campaign, and the challenges Mr. Bush and Republicans face in trying to govern over the next two years, even though they control Congress as well as the White House.

Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Masters of Sleaze” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22brooks.html?ex=1269147600&en=79789cfef5ebeee1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland”>The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Masters of Sleaze By DAVID BROOKS

Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it! …

Soon the creative revolutionaries were blending the high-toned forms of the think tank with the low-toned scams of the buckraker. …

As time went by, the spectacular devolution of morals accelerated. Many of the young innovators were behaving like people who, having read Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative,” embraced the conservative part while discarding the conscience part. …

The sleazo-cons thought they could take over K Street to advance their agenda. As it transpired, K Street took over them.

Note this is from Brooks, the Liberal’s favorite Conservative. If you’re unfamiliar with Abramoff the Scoundrel, read this and then start researching. Now with Bill Moyers covered this in depth 6 months ago. mjh

Columns: Power abused, democracy corrupted

By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist

The end justifies the means.

When you have enough power, you can tell the courts to get lost, you can overrule the self-government of an entire state, you can obliterate the rule of law.

It does not matter that Florida’s courts ruled that Terri Schiavo expressed the wish not to kept alive artificially. We are entitled to ignore court rulings.

Neither does it matter that the doctors say that her brain has largely turned to fluid. We may dismiss these facts with a wave of the hand, or a sound bite on CNN.

Congress knows all. The federal government knows all. The strutting Tom DeLay and the unctuous Bill Frist know more than all the judges and doctors combined.

They are cynically armed with their internal memo about how many votes they are going to get out of the Christians. Some members of Congress speechified without knowing how to pronounce Terri Schiavo’s name, or the most basic facts.

Tom DeLay’s conduct is odious. He represents everything bad about Congress. His principal pastime is raising large amounts of money from wicked people in return for hurting the public good. …

If you are cheering because Congress acted in the midnight hour to “save” Terri, be sure of what you are cheering for.

You are applauding a Congress for throwing out the rulings of the courts, throwing out the due process of the states, and substituting its own will. …

For the sake of headlines and self-righteousness, the U.S. Congress waited until the final seconds of a years-long, agonizing legal process to say that our law does not count. Many well-meaning people are cheering. And so one more tree falls.

… until Democrats endorsed Civil Rights.

The Writer’s Almanac – MARCH 20, 2005

It was on this day in 1854 that the Republican Party was founded. The name “Republican” was first used many years before, by Thomas Jefferson’s political party, the Democratic Republican Party. That name was shortened to the Democratic Party, which is what we call it today. The present-day Republican Party was formed by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and by members of other parties, like the Democratic and Whig parties, who disagreed with their parties’ positions on slavery. By 1855, the Republican Party was thriving in the North, while it had almost no following in the South. The Republican Party’s second candidate for President of the United States was Abraham Lincoln, who was elected in 1860.